At the start of the tour
Welcome to Oso Creek Trail
Welcome to the Oso Creek Trail, right in the middle of Mission Viejo. Oso is Spanish for bear. There are no bears here. Well, no live ones. We'll keep count.
This is an easy walk of a little under a mile, heading north along the creek to a painted tunnel under Jeronimo Road. On the way: a garden built out of old sidewalks, a hedge maze, and two obelisks, which is two more obelisks than most creeks get.
Volunteers planted, tiled or painted most of what you'll see. I'll tell you a story at each spot and stay quiet in between, so put your phone away and enjoy the walk.
Point 1 · At the stop
The trailhead
We're starting beside the Potocki Center. This building and the fields around it were dedicated on September 11th, 1993, as the training center for the United States men's team for the 1994 World Cup, which the country was hosting that summer. Some of the best soccer players in America spent their days right here, a short walk from a creek named after an animal that doesn't live here anymore. Today the building is the Potocki Center for the Arts.
Now, the bear count. The city lists two mosaic bears here at the Potocki Center: the Folklorico Bear and the Liberty Bear. They're life-size, and they're covered in tiles. Between 2012 and 2015, artists Joy Aldrich and Aileen May guided more than a thousand residents of all ages to tile nine of these bears. If you can spot them, that's two bears. A good start, and the safest kind.
When you're ready, head north on the path along the creek.
History, on the way there
On the way: The Celebration Garden
Next, we're heading to the Celebration Garden. Along the way, watch for the trail's big history sign.
The Oso Creek Trail started in April 1997, at a spring festival the city called Tierra Nativa. It rolled Earth Day, Arbor Day, National Trails Day and a volunteer day into one big spring day of digging and planting. The city counts more than fifteen thousand volunteers, seventy thousand hours of work, and more than a hundred and thirty thousand plants. That's a lot of Saturdays.
The creek has a deeper history, too. When the Mission Viejo Company graded this valley, it found fossils in the creek bed: baleen whales, toothed whales, long-snouted dolphins, early sea lions, sharks and rays. Millions of years ago, this valley was under the ocean. So, strictly speaking, you're walking on the sea floor.
And the creek itself used to be dry most of the year. Today it runs year round, fed mostly by runoff from the neighborhoods: sprinklers, car washes, all of it. Every town leaves a trail. This one leaves a creek.
Point 2 · At the stop
The Celebration Garden
This is the Celebration Garden. Look for the row of tall, tiled pillars. There are ten of them, one for each year of the Tierra Nativa festival, from 1997 to 2006, and each pillar carries that year's theme.
The pillars are built from masonry blocks, but their bases are made from recycled concrete from the city's own sidewalk replacement project, stained with fertilizer. The path under your feet is recycled city sidewalk too. In Mission Viejo, even the sidewalks get a second career.
A long list of artists designed the garden, among them Marilyn Brame, Misha Ma'Heo, Aileen May and Dru Maurer, along with art students and the city's children. At the end, Marisa Herman designed the Unity Mosaic of Hands, meant to show the variety of people who make up this town. Find a hand that looks like yours.
Point 3 · At the stop
The hedge maze and the America 250 obelisk
Here's the maze: rows of low, clipped hedges around a rose garden, with a path of stepping stones that runs straight to the middle. For a maze, that's very generous.
In the middle stands the trail's newest piece of art, the America 250 obelisk, put up this year for the country's two hundred and fiftieth birthday by the city and the Mission Viejo chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Walk all the way around it, because each side tells a different story. One side shows the Declaration of Independence, under a waving flag. One shows the Liberty Bell, crack and all. One shows a Continental soldier with his musket, for the American Revolution, 1775 to 1783. And the last shows a bald eagle, soaring over mountains, forest and a creek.
Look closely at the bottom of the eagle side. There's a small bear by the water. Bear count: three. The original art is by Maryann Rudolph Herrera, a past regent of the chapter, and the tile was made by Joseph and Sons, a Los Angeles family of mosaic artists. Their signature is in the corner. The bronze plaque on the base honors the Revolutionary War Patriots, the men and women who won American independence.
When you're ready, continue north on this path.
History, on the way there
On the way: The Peace Obelisk
Next, we're heading to the Peace Obelisk. Here the path follows the creek more closely, and in places it's dirt, so watch your step.
This is a good stretch for looking at the trees. The big ones with pale, patchy bark are California sycamores, the trail's signature tree. They grow along creek beds but can handle a dry year. The dark, dense ones are coast live oaks, Mission Viejo's official city tree.
And keep an eye on the water. The trail's sign lists great blue herons, great egrets, song sparrows, Costa's hummingbirds and turtles along this creek. A heron standing perfectly still in the shallows is easy to walk right past. Herons are very good at pretending to be sticks.
The creek you're following runs south into Trabuco Creek, then San Juan Creek, and out to the ocean at Doheny. In the dry months, though, most of it never gets that far. Since the late 1970s, a pump station just downstream has caught the creek's dry-weather flow and sent it back up to the Upper Oso Reservoir, to water the city's landscaping.
Point 4 · At the stop
The Peace Obelisk
This is the Peace Obelisk. The community put it up in honor of the victims of September 11th, 2001, with the hope of fostering peace in the world.
It's a quiet spot, and it was meant to be. Each September 11th, the city has gathered for its remembrance at the memorial flagpole by the lower parking lot, where you started this walk.
Take a moment here if you'd like. When you're ready, the tunnel is a little farther north, where the path meets Jeronimo Road.
History, on the way there
On the way: Tunnel Vibration
Next, we're heading to the end of the trail at Jeronimo Road, and a tunnel that's been painted to move.
First, an update on the bear count. Across the creek, on the Upper Oso Trail, the city has set four more of its mosaic bears: the Jazz Bear, the Lion and Sun Bear, the Pacific Island Bear and the Juaneño Bear. A fifth, the Rainforest Bear, stands farther north at the Oso Creek Golf Course. That's seven tiled bears along one creek, in a town named for none of them. One more, the Year of the Dragon Bear, is still waiting for a home.
The tunnel ahead used to be plain metal. In January 2023, volunteers ten and up signed up for a community painting day to help paint a new mural there. It's called Tunnel Vibration. The idea is real color science: when high-contrast colors sit right next to each other, your eyes can't quite settle, and the stripes seem to shimmer. The city even planned free concerts inside, to take advantage of the tunnel's echo.
Point 5 · At the stop
Tunnel Vibration
Here's Tunnel Vibration. Stand at the mouth and let your eyes wander down the walls. Do the colors seem to buzz? That's the illusion working. Say something in a normal voice, too, and listen to the tunnel hand it back to you. You can see why someone thought: concerts.
That's the end of the tour. In under a mile you've walked past a World Cup training ground, across an old sea floor, through a garden made of recycled sidewalk, into a labyrinth with a brand-new obelisk, and past a memorial to peace. Almost all of it was built by people who live here, one spring Saturday at a time.
Final bear count: no live bears, as promised. For the walk back, you can return the way you came, or cross to the paved path on the far side of the creek, past Oso Viejo Park, where you'll find restrooms. Thanks for walking the Oso Creek Trail with me.